As much as computer and automation technology has been advanced, there are still some tasks which a computer is unable to perform or at least not perform as well or as efficiently as a human being. Such tasks include both subjective and objective based tasks, such as describing/categorizing a picture, transcribing an audio recording involving multiple speakers, etc. Some companies leverage such deficiencies, such as to secure resources or otherwise inhibit computer-automated attacks or abuse. For example, the Captcha challenge-response test, promulgated by Carnegie Mellon University, utilizes a test which presents words or alphanumeric strings hidden in distorted or obscured images and requires the user to enter what they see, as a security test to confound automated systems and ensure that a human being is actually interacting with the protected system. However, for other companies, these deficiencies represent both an impediment to efficient workflows and a source of increasing costs.
These types of tasks are often referred to as human intelligence tasks (“HIT”'s) because they depend on the human intellect to be accomplished or accomplished effectively and/or efficiently. Companies whose business workflow depends on HIT's often need to employ a substantial and/or highly skilled work force in order to complete these types of tasks. For example, an Internet search engine company needing to describe and catalog a library of pictures so that they may be searchable may require a large work force in order to perform the task on a large amount of data in a reasonable amount of time.
To assist companies which depend on HIT's, services have been developed to outsource the performance of these tasks to foreign countries offering large low-wage labor pools or, alternatively, to an Internet based community of voluntary, part-time or ad-hoc workers/independent contractors. An exemplary service of this type is offered by Amazon.com, known as the Mechanical Turk or MTurk, which allows a company or other entity to present an HIT to an Internet community, offering compensation in exchange for performance of the task.
While such systems have evolved to fill the need for a human workforce to perform simple HIT's, many businesses are unable to take advantage of such services due to the secure or confidential nature of the HIT that they need to have performed. For example, distributing a task involving the transcription of social security numbers to an Internet based ad-hoc workforce would present issues of privacy protection and liability. Therefore, these businesses must rely on an internal trusted work force, operating under suitable controls/security measures, to perform the necessary tasks.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system that would permit the outsourcing of HIT's involving secure and/or confidential information to non-secure environments without compromising the information or creating undue liability.